Regulator Publishes WLL Sale Rules

Chile's telecom regulator Subtel published revised technical rules for Wireless Local Loop (WLL) concessions in the country's Federal Register equivalent on Friday. The new rules provide for six, 50MHz bands (A-F) in each of the country's thirteen regions. Telcos applying for WLL concessions are prohibited from accumulating more than 100MHz per concession area. Subtel also clarified that WLL is for the provision of local telecom services, most likely to prevent unfair competition between local operators and national long distance carriers, Teleductos Chile long distance director Mario Dominguez told BNamericas.com. The regulator's next step is to publish "beauty contest" rules with a view to issuing the concessions in 1Q01. Subtel typically awards telecom concessions to telcos that present the best technical offer in terms of deployment time and coverage, as opposed to a public bidding process. Chile's Antimonopoly Commission froze the WLL licensing process in May at the request of operators who claimed the bidding rules favored incumbent operators. Subtel originally planned to issue three 100MHz WLL concessions in the 3.4GHz-3.7GHz band. In September, the Antimonopoly Commission ordered Subtel to make available homogeneous spectrum blocks, no lower than 50MHz and no greater than 100MHz, in each of the country's 13 regions. Alejandro Ulloa, Telex-Chile (NYSE: TL) director, told financial daily Estrategia (Chile) that his company was satisfied with the technical norms, but hoped Subtel would not discriminate against new operators who don't have existing infrastructure in place. Chile's second largest local operator Telsur also spoke out in favor of the new rules, saying they fostered competition and lowered entrance barriers for new players in the local loop. Incumbent operators Telefonica CTC Chile (NYSE: CTC) and Entel Chile wanted few licenses with more bandwidth, claiming such a scheme would allow lower deployment and end user costs.